Racing Blue 200FF diary

[Matty_L]

After spending many months looking around for a 200 to replace my Fabia vRS DSG, great at first, but very bland and a silly mistake IMO going for something with DSG, I was missing the fun of a manual gearbox. I ended up looking at several at various garages, all discounted because of various items, lack of service history, poor condition, too many miles, wrong colour or spec, this little beauty turned up less than 3 miles from my house.

It had the perfect spec with Speedlines & Recaro's, Full Renault Service History, low miles, it ticked all the right boxes.





I was hooked after the short test drive, the way the car handled around a sweeping S bend and around a roundabout, I knew that I would be saying goodbye to the Fabia.A deposit was left and then the long wait for the DVLA to remove my private plate from my old car ensued.

Finally when it was all through I was able to pick it up on this Monday, and the mods have started almost immediately. Firstly was the Silvatec indicator bulbs front and rear from my old car were fitted, then the 'CLIO' badging on the boot was removed. I then spent the whole of my day off today giving it a proper valet it should have got from the garage, 2BM, SRP and a good coating of Nattys Blue wax left it looking like this (apologies for the poor iPhone pics)

My wind deflectors turned up today but I didn't get time to fit them, so will probably have those on next week, as I work most weekends (damn the motor trade!)

As its just clocked past midnight it means payday has arrived so now got to decide whether I want an exhaust or the cup spoiler this month as I have also got a 205 GTi 1.9 that is currently requiring some mechanical attention which will be soaking up some funds this month.

I will update here as often as I can, I keep looking on other threads at stuff thats out there or easy mods to do so any suggestions will be appreciated guys.

Also 1 problem which I know many have suffered with, I have noticed that the foam on the drivers O/S lower bolster seems to have come away from the seat but the cloth hasn't split, but does look worn. Is this something that I'm going to have problems with trying to get Renault to cover it under warranty?

 

[Matty_L]

Should really update this after 2 years!

Well the Clio has seen many little changes over the almost 2 years I have had it.

Not long into ownership I managed to get hold of a K-Tec racing exhaust and de-cat pipe which promptly got fitted at working, gave the car the much needed rorty noise that it should have had from the factory, added bonus that it seems to pop and bang for fun!

Then it a few little bits came in order of a full LED conversion of interior bulbs, sidelights and number plate lights, sorry no pics of these! Also calling in a favour from my painter at work to paint my diamonds in black. Well he painted them pink first as a joke and in fairness I did rock them in pink for about a week until he finally got around to painting them for me. Following straight on from the diamonds, was a set of RS centre caps for the speedlines, much tidier than the original caps which aren't even black?!?







Then the I didn't really do much more to the car apart from enjoy driving it, managed to make it to Rally GB in '14, so it got quite dirty, and ashamedly stuck in a ditch whilst parking at the stage we were at, that meant I needed to be towed out by a local in his Defender.

 

[Sean197]

Nice little touches there. Any plans? How do you find the exhaust to live with day to day?

 

[Matty_L]

Not to worry though folks, she does get pampered and treated to a proper wash quite often, I think at the Rally was the dirtiest the Clio has ever been!

As you can see in the following pics, my next subtle modification to do was to have a 3 1/4 size number plate fitted on the front, at first I wasn't too sure until I popped it on the car and it fits the recess much better than the standard sized plate. Also never had any trouble from the law with it so thats always a nice bonus!







Then one evening I saw someone on here selling an ITG Maxogen on here for an amazing price. Without hesitating I snapped it straight up, I have always been a fan of ITG and had 2 of the variants on my previous Fabia vRS, a standard one like we have on the Clio and then a Carbon fibre one which looked amazing, surprised that we have nothing like that for our cars available!



As you can see it's a very tight fit with the standard battery in place, and the ducting going to behind the NSF lamp for cold air. I am considering a smaller Varley Red Top battery, but don't know how the battery would hold up, if anyone has one or has had one on here any advice would be appreciated!

The car then stayed as it is for a while, even had it off of the road from October 2015 until 1st January, I had use of a company car so made no sense to have it running over the winter in fear of bad weather. Typically though we never had any snow around my area so it was quite a mild winter, but the amount of times people would harrass me in my company car and I was thinking all of the time I wish I was in the Clio!

So along came January 1st, so the car came back onto the road and I went for a brilliant drive around the Derbyshire Dales, Bakewell, Buxton, Matlock to name a few, roads were deserted and the car was in its element, the love was still there for the little Smurf!

 

[Matty_L]

Nice little touches there. Any plans? How do you find the exhaust to live with day to day?

Thanks Sean.

The exhaust for me has been fine, never had any issues with the noise or sound of it, it has quite a nice tone both when you on it and just tootling about, some nices pops and bangs too. I've always been one for a nice exhaust, Blitz NurSpec on my supercharged Yaris, Remus on my Astra VXR, and a Jetex on the Fabia vRS.

I am planning on changing the exhaust though as I want the Akrapovic Evo system and see that RS Tuning have got a great offer on of Free Fitting and 25% off a remap if carried out at the same time so will probably take them up on that offer, along with getting a ToyoSport manifold, so the K-Tec exhaust will be up for sale over the next few weeks.

Also got a few more updates to go, so will sort another post tomorrow, showing some of the bits I currently have in the garage to get fitted.

 

[Nejjam]

Nice mate, see you didn't get the cup spoiler or fit the wind deflectors lol

 

[Matty_L]

Nice mate, see you didn't get the cup spoiler or fit the wind deflectors lol

The wind deflectors got fitted about 2 months ago, I forgot I had them in the garage so did end up fitting them, as for the spoiler....no, I'm still waiting, was hoping to find a genuine Cup Racer one but to no avail so it's still on the list of parts to get.

I work in car sales so only usually get 1 day off a week so it's rare I manage to find time to spend it on the car as the other half always thinks I love the Clio more than her if I don't spend time with her instead :lol: :001_rolleyes:

TBH even the 205 I mentioned in the original post hasn't been on the road since then either, turned out a liner was cracked in the bore housing, so thats halfway through having a new engine fitted, albeit a 2.0 16v out of a Xsara VTS! Another one on the list of "It'll be done this year"

 

[VolumeX]

..Xsara VTS, man I owned one of them french machines, wonderful car in its time.